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Killer in the family podcast
A true crime podcast exploring men who kill their families.
Killer in the family podcast
Episode 47 - The Coleman Family
On 5 May 2009 31 year old Sheri Coleman and her two sons 11 year old Garret and 9 year old Gavin were found murdered in the home they shared with husband and father Chris Coleman. On his return from the gym that day Coleman became a prime suspect in their murders and the police found a complex web of lies that he had created to hide the affair he was having. Exactly two years after the murders on 5 May 2011 Coleman was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murders of his wife and two sons.
This is the story of Sheri, Garret and Gavin Coleman.
Information and support
· Samaritans UK Contact Us | Samaritans
· National Domestic Violence Helpline UK 0808 2000 247
· Advocacy After Fatal Domestic Abuse (AAFDA) Home - AAFDA
· Women’s Aid www.womensaid.org.uk
· Mental health support USA I'm looking for mental health help for myself | Mental Health America (mhanational.org)
· Domestic abuse helpline USA 1.800.799.SAFE Domestic Violence Support | National Domestic Violence Hotline (thehotline.org)
References
Let’s Get Visible podcast episode https://open.spotify.com/episode/6G7UXsx0013UsDQ5kUuE1t?si=qrXOtJ0ySQinTmqPCAqEHA
Writing on the wall documentary https://youtu.be/eQ7EH3Hpyp4
Sheri Ann Weiss Coleman (1977-2009) - Find a Grave Memorial
MURDERED: The Coleman Family | Crime Junkie Podcast
Christopher Coleman of the Coleman family murders: where is he today? - YEN.COM.GH
Man Accused of Killing Family Texts Girlfriend from Wife's Funeral - CBS News
Credits
Hosted and created by Clare Laxton @ladylaxton
Produced by: Clare Laxton
Killer in the family podcast (buzzsprout.com)
Persons of InterestFrom murderers to money launderers, thieves to thugs – police officers from the...
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
Killer in the family podcast is a total labour of love. If you'd like to support me please buy me a coffee or tea!
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/clarelaxton
Hi there and welcome to Killer in the Family podcast. I'm your host, claire Laxton. Welcome to episode 47. And before we get started, just a reminder that I'm interviewed on another brilliant podcast called let's Get Visible, which is about women's experiences in later life. I'm on it talking about my master's research into intimate partner homicide and coercive control. I'll pop the link in the episode notes and on my socials as well if you're interested in listening. So let's get straight into this episode.
Speaker 1:On the 5th of May 2009, 31-year-old Sherry Coleman and her two sons, 11 old garrett and nine year old gavin, were found murdered in the home they shared with husband and father chris coleman on his return from the gym. That day, coleman became a prime suspect in their murders and the police found a complex web of lies that he'd created to hide the affair he was having. Exactly two years after the murders, on the 5th of May 2011, coleman was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murders of his wife and two sons. This is the story of Sherry Garrett and Gavin Coleman. This is going to be a tough listen team and a lesson, as if we needed it in the lengths that perpetrators will go to to protect their image and start a new life. For this episode I've relied on news articles, a crime junkie podcast episode and an episode of the documentary the Writings on the Wall by 48 Hours about the case. All the sources are linked in the episode notes, as are links to information and support if you need it.
Speaker 1:So Sherry Ann Weiss was born on the 3rd of July in 1977 in Cook County, illinois. Anyone who watches the Good Wife will be familiar with Cook County. Illinois is the state with Chicago as its biggest city and Cook County is its biggest county. So Sherry was born to parents Donald and Angela and had a brother called Mario. Her mother described her as a beautiful person on the inside and the outside. She grew up as a devout Christian and after high school joined the Marines. It was there that she met future husband. When they were both serving in the canine unit, she met Chris Coleman. After dating for just a few months, sherry and Coleman married in 1997. A somewhat surprise to both their families, though, they were happy that they were happy and in love.
Speaker 1:Now Chris Coleman was born on the 20th of March 1977 to parents Ron and Connie Coleman. Like Sherry, he was also brought up in a strong Christian family and, also like Sherry. After he graduated high school, he joined the Marines. After meeting and marrying Sherry, they both left the military and Coleman got a job as head of security for a woman called Joyce Mayer.
Speaker 1:Now Joyce Mayer was what was called a televangelist, someone who uses a whole range of comms channels to market religion, particularly Christian messages, and also market themselves. Now I think televangelism is like a particular feature of American life, rather than life for us in the UK, although I know they exist in this country, but it feels like it's quite an American thing. But I'd be really interested to know if anyone has experience of you know, seeing or knowing a televangelist, and I'm sure you can sort of conjure up images of someone on a stage preaching to thousands of people, usually asking for donations for their church. Now Joyce Mayer was particularly and still is a particularly famous televangelist, and her company Joyce Mayer Ministries is actually now worth about eight million dollars. So back in the early noughties and possibly still now, to be honest not everyone welcomed a female preacher, and so Joyce hired Coleman to be her head of security to protect her from people who hated her, and what she did Now. Coleman was apparently very successful in this role. He earned about a hundred thousand dollars, so pretty solid salary as well. Now, an interesting part of Coleman's role was firing employees when they had been found to be having extramarital affairs. One of the conditions of employment with Joyce Mayer was living in accordance with Christian values and morals, and this included not having extramarital affairs. Now, at this time as well, sherry and Coleman welcomed their first child into their family. Sherry and Coleman welcomed their first child into their family.
Speaker 1:Garrett Dominic Eugene Coleman was born on the 30th of April 1998. He was a thinker, apparently so quite quiet, but apparently loved sports and played in a football team. He was in the fourth grade at a local school called Parkview Elementary in Columbia when he was killed. He was just 11 years old. Now, soon after Garrett, the family welcomed Gavin. He was born on the 25th of January 2000 and apparently he was a lot more outgoing than Garrett, taking after Sherry in that sense, and he was in the third grade of the same school when he was killed. He was just nine years old when he was murdered by his father In the sort of late noughties.
Speaker 1:The whole family lived in Columbia, illinois. They all attended a church called Destiny Church in St Louis and seemed to have a pretty happy life. Unbeknownst to many outside the family, sherry and Coleman's marriage was actually anything but happy. Apparently, he told his father that he was unhappy with their levels of intimacy and that she was neglecting her wifely duties. His feelings of unhappiness and resentment towards Sherry also apparently increased to verbal and physical abuse towards her, and apparently he would sometimes say that she was unproductive and that her and the children were obstacles in his life. Now, what an absolute piece of crap. This guy is Now back to Coleman and his job because in November 2008, he actually started receiving death threats to his work email.
Speaker 1:They said things like quote tell Joyce to stop preaching the bullshit and if I can't get to Joyce, I'll get to someone close to her. Now, presumably these death threats were from people who didn't like Joyce or what she did, so Coleman reported the emails to the police and the family was given a bit of extra support and patrols, and in January 2009, the family received a hand-delivered death threat to their mailbox which is absolutely terrifying and it read quote time is running out for you and your family. At the end of April 2009, another email arrived which said quote stopped today or else I know your schedule. I'm always watching, I know when you leave in the morning and I know when you stay at home. Now, one of the neighbours of the Coleman's was actually a police detective sergeant called Justin Barlow. He supported them through, you know, this pretty terrifying time and actually mounted a camera on his own house that was directed to the Coleman's house to sort of keep a safe and watchful eye on what was going on at their house. You know, despite these death threats and I'm sure how scared the Colmans were, to the outside the Colmans appeared to have a perfect life. They were the perfect family. Now, how often have we heard that?
Speaker 1:On the 5th of May 2009, around 6.40, 6.50 in the morning, coleman called his neighbour, justin Barlow, the detective sergeant, as he was worried about Cherie. Coleman had gone to the gym earlier in the morning and was trying to get hold of her, but he just couldn't, probably thinking about the death threats they'd be receiving. Justin took Coleman's call very seriously. He called it in and him and his police colleagues went to the Coleman house to see what was going on. Now, on the Writing in the Wall documentary, justin talked about how they couldn't really see anything wrong at the front of the house. So they went around the back and found an open basement window. They went through, walked through the basement and started going upstairs, and as he went up the stairs he talked about how the overwhelming smell he felt was spray paint. Now, all over the walls in the house was red spray paint. Red spray paint difficult to say, with phrases such as you've paid and you've been punished, and lots of other things that contained a lot of expletives, which I'm not going to go into here. The spray paint across the house is quite reminiscent of the murders of Colette MacDonald and her children that we talked about in episode 29. If you remember, police suspected that Geoffrey MacDonald, her husband, staged the red paint to make police think it was a Charles Manson type murder rather than a familicide, and I wonder if the same was happening with Chris Coleman here.
Speaker 1:Anyway, back to May, the 5th 2009. So Justin, the detective sergeant, talked to the Writing on the Wall documentary about how he walked up the stairs to the bedrooms. There he and his colleagues found Sherry, garrett and Gavin dead in their beds. They found Sherry in the master bedroom, then Garrett and then Gavin in their own bedrooms, and it's clear that they had been murdered. All of them had been strangled in their sleep and in Garrett's room there was also spray paint, not just on his sheet but also on his body as well, and apparently they sort of had some seen messages on his bedsheets, which is just really sickening. The autopsy on Sherry found also that she had fought hard for her life. She had two black eyes and had clearly fought to survive. Whoever the perpetrator was would have injuries and scratches from her, maybe. Now justin talked about how no one could prepare for that crime scene and we've talked about this before on the podcast, you know for first responders, so police and paramedics who are going into those crime scenes not knowing what to expect, and you know the horror and shock of finding a whole family dead must just stay with them for such a long time. He has and he talks about this is Justin the lasting image of Garrett, because he was the body that he discovered.
Speaker 1:Now, by this time, coleman had come back from the gym and you know he was given the news about his family and he apparently sat on the driveway of his house and then was sobbing in the fetal position. Police started investigating straight away, calling in help from other forces and a major case squad, calling in help from other forces and a major case squad, coleman was taken to the police station to try and understand what happened that morning and who had killed his wife and two young sons. So, as the police were investigating this familiar side um, they focused on you know, probably quite rightly, whoever wrote the emails. You know they thought you know, probably quite rightly, whoever wrote the emails. You know they thought that you know, potentially this person had come and caused the family some serious harm, and they asked Coleman who he thought it was that was writing the emails. He had no idea.
Speaker 1:As they continued to question Coleman, though, they started getting a bit suspicious. So in these interviews with him, him like he wasn't under arrest, they were just interviewing him as like a family member. He wasn't asking anything about how his family had died at all. He showed no curiosity about what happened to them, and you can see why that was suspicious to the police, as they would have been used to dealing with families of victims who were probably inconsolable and want to know exactly what happened and how. Coleman also asked for a blanket because he said he was cold, although you know the police officers thought it was quite warm in the room they were in and he he got the blanket but he just used it to cover his arms, which police noticed were covered in scratches.
Speaker 1:Coleman, as the interview sort of progressed and the police sort of delved, tried to delve a bit more into their life. Coleman then talked about a woman called Tara Lentz who he said he talked to a lot. The police pushed him and he admitted that some of the conversations they had probably wouldn't have been approved by his wife. He said they didn't go any further though. Now Tara was actually a friend of Sherry's, from high school I think, and she lived in Florida, and when Sherry and Coleman went to sort of down for a holiday she introduced them both. So police hot-footed it to go and see Tara in Florida.
Speaker 1:Now when they spoke to her very quickly after they started speaking to Tara, it was clear that she was his girlfriend. She provided police with pictures, messages, videos, everything from Coleman, and it was very clear that they were having an intimate relationship and an extramarital affair. For Coleman Now, apparently it had begun about six months before the murders. He would fly her to meet him and she actually had on her calendar a scheduled wedding with Coleman and holiday dates too. He actually said he thought it wasn't an affair, because that's when you're like living with someone else, whatever mate. It turned out that Coleman was actually texting Tara during the funerals of his wife and sons. I literally cannot with this man, and this is really reminiscent of the family that we talked about in episode one.
Speaker 1:The Watts family and Chris Watts, who got a girlfriend and you know from that, from that affair, obviously wanted to leave his family, for whatever reason, chose murder over divorce, and um was quite you know, he's quite an infamous family annihilator. And Chris Coleman seems to have similar motivations here, and although police suspected him strongly, they couldn't hold him on that first day because they needed more evidence. So they continued their investigation and started collecting the evidence. So they not only had those photos, messages and calls between Coleman and Tara, but they also found that on the 5th of November 2008, coleman wrote in his diary that he met Tara and she changed his life and latterly they actually exchanged promise rings. Now it would turn out that Coleman actually met Tara way before November, maybe October, so he was lying about that too. But you know, that's just one line many. But think about that 5th of of November 2008.
Speaker 1:So is it any coincidence that nine days after that, coleman started receiving email threats? He actually told Tara that he was serving Sherry with divorce papers on the 5th of May, the day of the murders, and there was no evidence the police found that he had, you know, been to see a lawyer or been drawing up those divorce papers at all. So that was another lie, but he obviously had in his mind something happening that day. Also, police found no foreign DNA in the house. So the dna they found was all from the family or coleman, and other evidence police collected that pointed towards coleman included. So the cctv footage from justin's house you remember he put up a camera that was pointed at the coleman's house to try and see if he could find who was sending those death threats showed absolutely no one entered the house after Coleman left for the gym on the day his family was murdered Didn't even show anyone, you know, walking past or going round the back or anything like that. The police also found a credit card statement that revealed Chris had bought spray paint in the same colour as the one used at the home during the murders and, looking at time of death of Sherry, garrett and Gavin, they apparently died between 3 and 5am that's when Chris was still at home and apparently the swear words that were sprayed, you know, all over the walls and on the bedspreads matched Chris's handwriting. Two weeks after Sherry Garrett and Gavin were killed, coleman was arrested for their murders.
Speaker 1:Now, on the Writing on the Wall documentary, a police officer talked about how he thought the motives for the murders was quote greed, sex, selfishness and narcissism and I couldn't have put it better myself and narcissism, and I couldn't have put it better myself. Holman decided that he wanted a new life and his family was in the way. In fact, earlier on in this episode he'd already said to Sherry that him and the kids were obstacles in his life. Now, as we said, this sounds pretty familiar when we think back to Chris Watts and what he did. These guys are both escapee family annihilators. They saw their family as barriers to a new life, wanted to escape that and apparently decided that murder was easier than divorce. Now, in the case of Coleman, this might have been because of his religion, his community and his job as well, where divorce was very much not approved of. But it's so interesting when these men choose another sin of murder instead of getting divorced, and I think for me, that is all about their image, because if they get divorced, they have to live with people seeing them, as you know, having a failed marriage, whereas, in some strange logic, having their family murdered doesn't change their own image, apart from the fact that obviously they get caught and go to prison. But obviously they get caught and go to prison Now.
Speaker 1:Coleman went on trial in 2011 and the court heard from some of Cherie's friends, joyce Mayer and Coleman's girlfriend, tara. Now, during the trial, joyce Mayer told the court about her zero tolerance policy towards extramarital affairs and said that it definitely would have affected his job if she knew Coleman was having an affair, and Cherie's friends told the court about how she actually knew that Coleman was having an affair. She showed one of her friends a photo of Tara from her laptop, so she knew what was going on. Her friends also testified about the abuse that Sherry was suffering and that she felt she had no way out. She felt trapped. She actually said to one of her friends quote, if anything happens to me, chris did it. Now Tara testified that her and Coleman spoke every day and she said that she was waiting for him to get divorced before they could get married.
Speaker 1:There were other very compelling pieces of evidence presented at the trial as well as, if the evidence from Joyce, tara and Sherry's friends weren't enough. One piece of evidence was the time of death, as we've talked about. It turned out that Sherry Garrett and Gavin were killed before Coleman even left the house, so before he even said he left for the gym. That was pretty damning evidence. The second piece was that they found on his credit card statements that he had bought the same red spray paint that was used in the murders. And the last piece of evidence was from the police's computer expert, which found that all those threatening emails, the months and months of death threats, were sent from Coleman's computer. So he actually wrote these horrific and sick emails threatening his own family to start putting in place his plan to get rid of them. Honestly, it's just horrific to think about. So, although there was some pretty compelling evidence presented at trial, coleman's defence claimed that someone else must have committed the murders when he was at the gym. But the lack of anyone on the CCTV from that morning and the time of death of Sherry Garrett and Gavin just flew in the face of that claim. After 15 hours of deliberations, the jury found Coleman guilty of three counts of murder and he was sentenced to life imprisonment. He has submitted appeals to his conviction, much like many family annihilators we've spoken about but I actually don't want to spend too much time talking about that. He's in prison. In Wisconsin there is a memorial to Sherry Garrett and Gavin that includes a plaque and some benches close to where they lived. It was organised by friends and family who were also raising money to help victims of domestic abuse and to build a new little league field in their names. This episode is dedicated to Sherry Garrett and Gavin, to the love they brought their families and friends and to their potential unlived.
Speaker 1:This has been Killer in the Family podcast, written and produced by me, claire Laxton. I'll be back next week with a new episode, so please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Don't forget to send me any comments or questions to my Insta at Killer in the Family pod or through a text via the link in the episode notes. Do let me know any stories you'd like me to cover as well. Also, don't forget that you can buy me a coffee if you like the podcast and help support it's running. Lots of you have, and I really appreciate every single one and I read all of your comments and thank you so much. The link for this is in the episode notes. Until then, I've been Claire Laxton. This is Killer in the Family podcast. Until next time, take care, thank you, thank you.
